I've Got A Secret A Good One
by Elone McFox
Summary: Logan isn't just dealing with Lilly's murder and his father's violence - he also has to deal with a certain ghost wanting him to find out what really happened to her. Or maybe it's his subconscious telling him that something about the Abel Koontz story doesn't add up.
1. Chapter 1

Logan's the one seeing Lilly's ghost. Maybe it changes the way he sees other things as well. Some things might never be the same if Logan's all of sudden set in finding the real killer, is it?

* * *

He had never really been able to fully mourn the loss of her. Not because he was an idiot, a teenage boy without no feelings, but because he could not miss her. Not when she was still around, in his head, all the time. Or, well, maybe it was all in his head, but it might as well be real. So many times had he been sure that after she'd been around him, talking to him, lying in his bed or sitting on the floor, he'd been able to see the fabric stretched out in a way that wouldn't be if she hadn't been there, or the traces on the carpet from her thighs pressing down. He wasn't sure of it, but it was a fact he'd aknowledged as a truth to be able to clign to the fact that her appearing next to him all the time was, in fact, real.

When it all had started, the days he had first been interrogated about her death, it had made him calmer, able to focus on the task. He believed her to still be there so that he could avenge her death, or at least find out the truth – but the truth had already been found out, and the locked up forever, and she was still there.

That had been the answer to his "what for" question. But he still did not know exactly why she was there. He had wondered if maybe it was because of her being the love of his life and everything, bu the could hardly remember loving her – or loving anyone, really. When she had died, the numbness had taken over his body, and he could not even feel the memories of past feelings.

Of course, he still had feelings. Just not a lot of them, and only a certain few. He liked one – the adrenaline.

He saw her all the time. She was in his dreams when he was asleep, and she woke him up in the morning, spooning him. She challenged him into doing stupid things when he was drunk, and she made fun of Duncan whenever he was around. Not that Duncan could see her or hear her – he never reacted to the whispering jokes that made him chuckle at random times in the middle of a group of friends.

And he clung to her, trying to make every little thing prove that she was in every way near him. Not as a ghost - God, he knew she would have hated being a ghost, seeing how she'd always tried to tan a little bit more, but probably never reaching a darker shade of "softly bronzed and happily freckled". Being a ghost wouldn't exactly make her complexion more prone to bronze a little during the long Californian summers.

And now, he was laying on the hood of Veronica Mars' car parked by the beach and even though he had his friends with him, _she_ was also there, sitting next to him, swinging her feet back and forth. Of course, Veronica herself was there as well, with her friend, the flagpole taped new guy.

"Hey! Veronica... Mars." He jumped off the car, swinging a crowbar in his hands. "D'you know what your little joke cost me?" Right. He was angry. Angry at her for putting a bong in his locker before one of those oh so very random drug searches, angry at her for making his dad take away his car and hit him. He almost froze for a second, feeling the anger in his chest, relishing in the pleasure of actually feeling _something._

She made a joke about the bong. As if his confiscated car and now shining red back, though hidden under his brown sweatshirt, didn't even mean anything in the world, 'cause she was Veronica Mars and her speciality was making stupid decisions so that other could be hurt without her even caring.

He smiled at her, taking some of that feeling in his chest out on one of the headlights. "Wrong answer." He laughed to himself. "Would you care to guess again?"

"Clearly, your sense of humor," Veronica snarked at him.

He took out the other headlight. Easy, as if he had been at a golf court, or whatever boring place he might have been brought up if his parents had tried to fit in with the other 09ers. "Nope. You're usually so good at pop quizzes. No, the correct answer is my car. That's right. My daddy took my T-Bird away. And you know what I won't be having?" He went closer to Veronica, playing carelessly with the crowbar, watching her every move. "Fun, fun, fun."

Of course, he did not really care about the car. It was just a car, he could lend anyone's car - maybe Dick's. But this was the actual way Veronica Mars always did things - playing pranks on him resulting in taking away important things from him. At least this time it wasn't_her_.

He could see her, of course. She was still there, standing besides him all of sudden._"Logan,"_ she whispered,_"be nice to her. She's my friend, you know. Just because she's not your best friend's girlfriend anymore doesn't mean_you're_not her best friend's boyfriend."_

He was smiling, grinning wildly, as one of his friends made him conscious of the sound of motor cycle engines getting closer. Of course, it was Eli Navarro, the guy somebody called Weevil, and his... crew. The grandson of the Echolls family cleaner.

"What do we have here?" Weevil said, having parked his bike and now walking towards Logan.

The hispanic boy - yeah, pretty much just a boy, like the rest of them, Logan thought - was saying something about vandalism. And Logan zoned out, trying to fix his gaze on the other boy, but failing miserably. This wasn't going as planned, but he did not exactly expect Veronica Mars to be proetected by a criminal motorcycle gang, either.

And she was still there, lingering, whispering_, "that's Weevil. He's just a boy, Mr. Echolls,"_ in Logan's ear. Right, that's where he had got the difference from, that's why he couldn't see this Weevil as anything but a boy.

"Listen man, I don't have a problem with you."

Really, he didn't care about Eli Navarro. They rarely met, they rarely spoke, and as long as they didn't come crashing each other's parties, they were usually fine. And of course, he had been one of those people who once might have had anything to do with her murder.

Weevil took the crowbar from him, causing her to laugh._ "Oh well, he took something that was yours. Wouldn't be the first time. Oh right, you only borrowed it from someone, didn't you?"_

Weevil teased them, the whole group of Logan's friends, tearing the headlights and the hood of the borrowed car. Way to get your revenge, dickhead, Logan thought to himself, but he didn't say anything, watching as Weevil got whatever revenge for whatever unjustice he felt the 09ers had bestowed upon him this time.

Weevil finally stops, giving back the crowbar with glee, telling the richer boys to get away. "Except for you," he says to Logan. "You, say you're sorry."

Yeah, right. That would take at least a genie and a little Disney song. "Rub a lamp."

The blow hit him first in the stomach, where the marks of Aaron Echoll's rage had still barely had the time to form the patterns they usually formed into, but the soreness had already set in and made the blow feel so much deeper.

_"Be nice to him! He's my friend."_

Logan tried breathing despite the pain in his chest and whole body, tried figuring out why Lilly Kane wanted Weevil to be treated with the same Lilly Kane Friend Privileges as her very best friend, Veronica Mars. It didn't make sense. Lilly had barely even known Weevil.

As Logan got back up on his feet, he froze, looking at Veronica Mars, the girl who fucked up so much her best friend died. He sighed, feeling the even rhythm of the blood in every part of his body, until he closed his eyes.

"Okay. Veronica Mars, I am sorry. I shall immediately return to whatever dragon den I came from and think about my sins or... sorry, whatever. That's what Lilly would have wanted. You were her friend."

He didn't feel his blood anymore, and he didn't feel that angry feeling either. His legs could hardly keep him standing up, so momentarily fatigued from the pain from the several little violent adventures people had enjoyed themselves inflicting upon him today.

Veronica stared at him. "Um, yeah, Lilly would have loooved the redecoration thing you did with my car. So nineties grunge chic, you know?"

"Just back off, Echolls," Weevil snapped. "Don't use a dead girl as an excuse for what you're doing. Get the hell out of my way."

Logan shook his head, and turned around, getting into the car with his friends.

"Dude, what was that about?" one of them, Adam, asked.

_"I don't even know. Veronica really needs to stop her whole Avril Lavinge thing, right?"_ the ghost of Lilly Kane mused into Logan's ear, as they left the beach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter two**

The early morning sunshine slowly waking him up in the morning, long before he knew he would have to get up in order to be in time for school. Even though he knew the cleaner, Weevil's grandmother, had been there yesterday, he could still see the traces of dust in the lit-up air when he slowly opened his eyes.

"_Good morning, Logan."_

She hadn't been the one thing that woke him up, for once, as he hadn't even dreamed of her, but now he was awake, not in that wide awake way that came with sudden fear or someone waking you, but in the way that sunshine through your window wakes you up.

"Lilly, what-?"

"Sssccchhh. I'm here, but you know I'm only here 'cause... well, I never really knew why I was here, you know? And you didn't either, you still don't. But I guess I just wanted to give you time. Like, there was so much time we could have had?"

He rested his head on his hand, watching her, trying to wake up completely – he could still feel how his limbs hadn't woken up, his hand almost still too tired to support the weight of his head, and he knew that he could fall back asleep any second. But however close to sleep he was, he was in fact awake, and her presence wasn't a dream.

His eyes weren't fully awake yet either, and his vision was blurry; not even the colours seemed quite right. She was wearing her golden prom dress, her long hair in a ponytail, and it seemed completely wrong, like in movies when the girl always wore really beautiful and revealing clothes for no apparent reason.

"Lilly, stop, we were broken up, 'cause I screwed up, it was my fault."

"God Logan, don't be sappy. I'm not talking about that week. Those hours. More hours." She laughed, and ruffled his hair. "Remember prom night? We had all those hours? I miss Veronica. Sweet little Veronica Mars." She laughed like no one but Lilly Kane could laugh.

Trying to wake up, he shook his head and sat up under the duvet.

"Lilly what-"

"Logan, I want you to find out who did this to me."

Wandering around the room, she picked up a Rubik's cube from his shelf, and played with it. Logan had got it a few months ago, bu the has never been able to solve it. She looked at it, intrigued, and turned it around with her pale hands. Standing towards the sunlight form the windows, only part of her face visible from where he was.

"Did what?" Logan asked.

She turned towards him, showing the brutal headwound.

"Did this." She laughed silently, not showing any sort of sadness in her voice, but rather how annoyed she was. "Someone did this to me and they're not even paying for it. Make them pay."

When Logan had blinked, she was gone. The only trace left of her was the solved Rubik's cube on the floor.

"Lilly, I love you," he whispered into the now empty room and got out of bed to take a shower.

* * *

For whatever reason, he wasn't overly excited over meeting Duncan's friend Troy at lunch hour. Duncan awkwardly introduced them, before Dick managed to make the conversation about him by teasing them about his sex life. Until his on-again, off-again girlfriend Madison sat down at the table.

Madison Sinclair. One of those blonde girls who never really seemed to have a care in the world, except for having exactly right sort of bouncyness in their ponytail. The kind of carefree girl Lilly had been. Was. Whatever. She and Lilly had never been close, but they'd been casual friends, as Logan and Dick were friends.

"So Madison, we heard your house is free Friday." Dick said after she'd given him a fast kiss on the lips and then taken up her Diet Coke and started dirnking it.

"I thought we said we were doing the guys night thing at Duncan's," Logan reminded him and took a bite of his pizza. He was too tired at the moment from waking up early, to be able to feel excited at the thought of loud music, pretty girls and drinking until you throw up – or hit someone.

"Oh, right. We could throw a party there instead? Celebrating something, I heard a rare animal was born somwhere last week. We could do that." Dick laughed, not remembering if he'd actually heard about some animal being born or if he'd just dreamt it.

"I'm sure Celeste Kane would be delighted," Logan remarked.

"We could have it at my place," Troy offered. His eyes caught something behind Logan, and Logan turned around to see what had distracted him.

"Dude. No. That's Veronica Mars. She's a freakshow." Dick, too, had noticed what – who – Troy was looking at.

"She seems… spiky," Troy said, bemused.

"Oh my god, you so can not crush on Veronica Mars," Madison said.

Logan rolled his eyes.

"Guys, just stop," Duncan muttered.

"Yeah, stop talking about Duncan's trailer trash girlfriend," Logan said.

"Yeah, whatever," Troy said. "Party at my place, Friday. My parents won't be home."

"It'll be like, so much fun!" Madison said.

* * *

After school, Logan managed to sneak off in his car before he'd had to talk to anyone. Driving away in his yellow car, the one his dad had finally given back to him (in exchange for some "corrective" violence, so his dad would know that he'd really learnt a lesson), he went straight home to play some video games before meeting Dick later that night.

"Logan? Is that you?" Lynn Echolls, housewife, once a sort of successful actress, asked as he walked into the house.

"Yeah, Mom, it's me", he said and let his backpack slip to the floor.

"I think I've lost one of my credit cards... you haven't seen it, have you? I got something in the mail about some cards I know nothing about and apparently they've been used a lot." She was almost shaking, her hand holding an envelope and some number-filled paper.

"No, I haven't. You should go to the police, see if anyone's purchased anything, and you know…"

"Your father can't hear about this, Logan," she said sternly.

"Mom, go to the police. It might've been the maid. It's not like you just lost it."

"Well – yes, you're right." She sighed. "I need a martini."

"Yeah, well, don't worry. I can fix this. Dad won't know anything. Go take a nap or something."

He hated having to be the parent to his own mother, but he preferred that to seeing her in the panic mode she went into if nobody stopped her before it was too late.

He went into the kitchen, got a dry martini and a sleeping pill (making sure the two combined wouldn't put her in a coma) on a tray for her and brought it back to the couch, where she'd sat down. He supposed Dad was at one of those college classes he took for fun, and wouldn't be back until later this evening. It gave him some time to think.

Well. He _did _know someone who could find out anything about anyone in no time, didn't he? Sweet little Veronica Mars.

After his mother had fallen asleep in her bed, he called Veronica on the cellphone number he knew she'd had one year ago, even if he wasn't sure if she'd had a new number since. She didn't pick up. He sighed, but he knew that her dad had some kind of office for his little detective business, and he knew where to find it, so he drank a tall glass of ice cold water before returning to his car and driving there.

As he entered the office, he had to adjust his eyes to the weirdly lit room. He saw Veronica sitting by some kind of secretary desk, bent down over a computer screen, working while also answering some phonecall ("Mars Investigations!") on the phone next to her.

Her jaw dropped when she saw him enter the office, but she collected herself so quickly that he barely saw. "Oh Logan, have you come to take me away to our Happily Ever After?" she said, clapping her hands excitedly.

"I would never do such a thing without asking your father for permission first, my dear," he said. "In fact, I need your help. You need to Mars Investigate something for me. I'll pay. My Mom's lost her credit cards. Or, something. We don't know."

Veronica Mars looked at him and smile. "Oh my, is Logan Echolls asking his best friend's 'trailer trash girlfriend' – is that the correct term – for help? This certainly is one day to remember. But yeah, sure. It'll cost you a hundred dollars. Or two. I haven't decided how much of a jerkass you are being today."


End file.
